True Blood Brother
by Alobear
Summary: Dean reflects on his time in purgatory with Benny, and all that came after. No pairings.


Timeline: Set in Season Eight. Spoilers for anything to do with purgatory and a certain cajun vampire.

Warnings: None. No pairings.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything – just playing!

True Blood Brother

by

Alobear

Dean raised the machete, preparing to strike. He looked into the eyes of his prey, and hesitated.

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Purgatory wasn't hell. Dean had spent time in both, so he knew what he was talking about. It wasn't particularly pleasant, either, though. To begin with, it was all about survival – well, actually, it continued to be all about survival, but at the start it was all running and hiding and fighting, practically twenty-four-seven. Cas had bugged out pretty much the moment they'd arrived and, after that, Dean had been entirely alone. The place was crawling with monsters and they all wanted a piece of the new human arrival. So, Dean had his hands full staying alive for what felt like weeks, though there was no way to tell the time and the light level never changed, which was a real brain bender. He caught snatches of sleep here and there – while he apparently didn't need to eat, his mind still needed to shut down occasionally – but he was exhausted all the time, and the continual stress of pursuit took its toll, both mentally and physically.

What kept him going was his rapidly fading hope that he might still be able to find Cas. The monsters hunted him, but he hunted them right back, separating individuals from their packs and cornering them to demand information. It was less than rewarding work; none of the monsters were forthcoming and the confrontations inevitably ended with Dean killing them. And that was exactly how it went the day he met Benny.

He decapitated the first vamp against a tree, as soon as it claimed to have no knowledge of Cas' whereabouts. It was an indication of just how off his game he was, that Dean didn't even hear the second one approaching until it tackled him from the side and pinned him to the ground. He made a token effort to reach for the weapon he had just claimed from the first vampire, but suddenly his heart wasn't in it any more. He was tired, so tired of fighting and not getting anywhere. Even if he did find Cas, there was almost no hope they would ever find a way out of purgatory.

He felt the fight go out of him, and was just looking forward to the relief of oblivion, when another figure came out of nowhere, wrestling the vampire off him. Dean lay stunned for a moment, processing the fact that he apparently wasn't about to die after all, then rolled to his feet, just in time to see the second vampire summarily despatched by the newcomer. His saviour snarled and Dean saw vampire teeth retracting, instantly putting him back on guard. And that was how he met Benny.

Of course, to begin with, their alliance was uneasy. They tolerated each other because they both had something the other wanted. Benny knew where the portal out of purgatory was, and Dean was his only way of using it. Mutual trust followed quickly, though; it had to. If you're under threat, you have to trust the person at your back, or you're doomed. There's no time to second guess anything when there's a monster snarling in your face and another six circling behind you. Dean stopped keeping track of who was ahead when the number of times they'd each saved the other's life hit double figures. After that, it just became a part of daily life, like breathing. The monsters would come, they would fight for their lives, and Benny would be there to back him up.

They didn't talk much, but they didn't have to. Their bond was forged in battle, actions speaking far louder than words ever could. Silence was often vital, so they communicated mostly by gesture and touch. Fingers brushed across a bicep would mean 'enemies closing in'; a hand on a shoulder would mean 'how are you holding up'; or a brief touch on a knee would mean 'you rest, I'll take first watch'. Dean slept again, safe in the knowledge that Benny was there, watching over him. It was the renewed sense of purpose that gave him his energy, though; Benny gave him hope and that was a more powerful restorative than any amount of sleep. It went deeper than that, though, and Dean knew it. In that place, during that time, Benny was life – the only thing he had that wasn't made up of fear and pain.

Even after they found Cas and two became three, Dean's bond with Benny was still stronger than anything else. They had become an effective team by then, moving in and out of each other's space without conscious thought, always aware of where the other one was, fighting as one. Cas was remote and pessimistic, a third wheel rather than a seamless extension, and Dean's interactions with Benny highlighted the distance that had always existed between him and the angel, despite all they had gone through together.

Things changed, though, inevitably. Cas' angelic energy drew the monsters to them like a magnet, so the companionable silence Dean had shared with Benny was no longer necessary. The angel and the vampire both took advantage of that in spades, sniping at each other constantly. Benny was less than keen to have Cas tagging along, and voiced his reservations frequently, though no less so than Cas did himself. It was the one thing the two of them agreed on – that they should just leave Cas behind - and, nearly all the time he wasn't fighting monsters, Dean spent fighting Cas and Benny on that point. He wasn't prepared to give up on Cas, even if the angel had admitted to running away when they first arrived, and he wouldn't let Benny's hostility erode his resolve, no matter how close they were.

Dean couldn't really blame Benny for his attitude towards Cas. After all, having the angel with them did put them in more danger. It wasn't just self-preservation on Benny's part, though. The first thing Benny did on meeting Cas was jump all over him about disappearing on Dean. While Dean appreciated the show of solidarity, it really wasn't helpful considering their circumstances. Still, he didn't plan on leaving either of them behind, so he did his best to keep both the peace and their momentum. The battles they fought became more fragmented when there were leviathans dropping from the sky, but Dean couldn't fault Benny on his commitment to their survival. The vampire saved Cas from certain death more than once, though Dean could tell Benny was doing it more for him than for the angel. They managed to form a cohesive team eventually, though, and made it to the portal just about in one piece.

That was when Dean and Benny became true blood brothers, mixing their blood together in order to complete the ritual that would allow Benny to escape. Taking Benny literally inside him in order to carry him out was about the most personal and intimate thing Dean had ever experienced.

Then, of course, Cas bugged out on Dean again, at the last minute, and Benny was the only one who made it out of purgatory with him. They'd agreed that they would go their separate ways once they got out; Dean had to get back to Sam, and he could hardly take Benny along to join their hunting party. If he was honest, he didn't want what he'd shared with Benny to spill out into the real world; it belonged to a wholly separate time and place and couldn't be introduced into life with Sam on the human plane. What happened in purgatory, stayed in purgatory.

It was hard for Dean when he got back. He was on edge all the time, constantly expecting an attack, completely unable to relax, and always looking over his shoulder for support from Benny, which was no longer there. He couldn't tell Sam what had happened while he was in purgatory; Sam would never understand. But Benny needed him in a way that Dean didn't want to admit to himself. Sure, when Benny called, asking for help, Dean ditched Sam and went running. But, once Sam found out about Benny, and reacted in exactly the way Dean had predicted, things went sour very quickly.

The whole episode with Martin and Benny's great-great-whatever-grand-daughter was just one big mess. Dean tried to come in on Benny's side, and even took a clout to the head for his trouble but, of course, it ended badly and drove the wedge even further between him and Sam. When, not long after, Dean told Sam he had to make a decision about Amelia one way or the other – both feet in or both feet out – he was talking to himself as much as he was to Sam. He knew he couldn't commit to hunting to Sam and have Benny calling him up every few weeks for another favour, so he put both feet in and told the vampire their association was over.

Thinking back on it later, Dean realised how badly he had let Benny down. Benny had told him in no uncertain terms just how much he was struggling with life back in the real world. He had even said that Dean was the only person keeping him on the straight and narrow, but Dean had refused to hear the pleas for help, had ignored his friend's plight in favour of making his own life simpler. He just couldn't reconcile what he'd shared with Benny in purgatory with how the real world worked, so he'd just turned his back and hoped the problem would go away.

Cas had abandoned him, Sam had given up on him, Lisa didn't remember him, and Bobby was dead. Benny was the only one who had been there for him, no matter what. And what had Dean done? Left him to deal with his blood cravings with little or no support, refused to help him when he asked, and now here he stood, about to cut his head off. And it was all for Sam, who hadn't even tried to find Dean when he disappeared, had in fact given up hunting altogether. But Sam was his brother, and he was in danger now, because Dean had dragged him back into their mess of a life and then forced him to take on the trials in his stead, due to Dean's failure. Besides, Benny had only been in his life for a year, and that had literally been in another world. Protecting Sam was the only job he'd had for as long as he could remember; it was the only thing he knew how to do.

What made it even worse was that Benny understood exactly how it was, and went along with it willingly. Dean cut Benny's head off, and Benny let him do it. Ever the true friend, even while Dean was cementing his betrayal by sending Benny back to purgatory to rescue Sam.

When Sam emerged, trial completed, but minus Benny, Dean was upset, but not really surprised. He had known how much Benny was struggling with being in the real world, and he realised staying behind in purgatory must have seemed like the only answer to the vampire. The only thing that could have conceivably enticed him back to the world of the living was Dean, and Dean had made it more than clear that he wasn't prepared to help him. During their last conversation, he had told Benny they'd find a way to fix his blood cravings, but both of them had known those were just empty words. Dean's only consolation was that Sam had at last seen Benny's worth and would no longer think of him with hostility.

Now, Benny was back in purgatory, fighting endless enemies but no longer battling himself. Dean almost envied him. It might have been life or death every minute of every day, but at least his existence in purgatory had made sense. It had been pure, clear cut, the monsters or him. Fighting was something he excelled at, and it was all he'd had to do in purgatory. Life out in the real world was messy and complicated, and full of impossible decisions. Dean missed Benny and the simplicity of what they had shared, but he knew he had thrown it away and would never get it back. They would both have to carry on, facing their monsters alone.

THE END


End file.
